The new surveillance: electronic technologies and the maximum security society
Gary Marx' Undercover provides a fine basis for fuller sociological analysis of electronic surveillance in the late twentieth century. He is correct that new technology is implicated in a new surveillance, although the interplay between social and technological factors must constantly be in vie...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
1992
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| In: |
Crime, law and social change
Jahr: 1992, Band: 18, Heft: 1/2, Seiten: 159-175 |
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Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
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| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Zusammenfassung: | Gary Marx' Undercover provides a fine basis for fuller sociological analysis of electronic surveillance in the late twentieth century. He is correct that new technology is implicated in a new surveillance, although the interplay between social and technological factors must constantly be in view. Above all it is computers, or, more properly, computers-plus-telecommunications that facilitate the new surveillance. They do so by allowing for the creation of novel categories of personal data, seen especially at present in computer matching. But they may also be enabling anather new departure, the integration of moments of surveillance once the province of quite distinct social institutions.The threat of a maximum security society emerging within the very liberal democratic contexts that cherish (above all economic) liberties is a reality. But fresh social analysis is called for, as the popularly-used and illuminative panoptic concept suffers from a number of basic flaws, and because we have yet to connect satisfactorily the equally pertinent themes of privacy and freedom. Modern social control seems to utilize several different disciplines, often acting in concert but in complex ways. The fact that some of the most potent arise in situations as apparently innocent as buying a restaurant meal with a credit card should not lull us into thinking that they are any less worrisome than certain undercover police tactics. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0751 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/BF00230629 |
